MODERN INDIA REMAINS SHACKLED TO CASTE SYSTEM

During mass, Rev. Socorso Mendes asks the Lord to enlighten those among his flock who insist some Christians are more equal than others simply because they were born into a higher caste.

The young priest is trying to avert a war between fellow Catholics in this drowsy little town wedged between palm groves and rice paddies and situated in Goa, a region converted to Christianity by the Portuguese--with help from their swords and the racks of the Inquisition--and annexed by India in the 20th Century.

Now the town's 2,000 "upper-caste" Christians have threatened to reconvert to Hinduism and demolish the 17th Century church of Our Lady of Health unless Mendes withdraws the two low-caste Christians, included for the first time, from the church council of 12.

"I have told them the door is always open. You can leave the church anytime," the defiant priest said. The rebels replied: "We'll cut you to pieces."

In many ways Cuncolim is a microcosm of an India that has the scientific and technical sophistication to build nuclear weapons and supercomputers but remains shackled to a 3,000-year-old caste system, a simmering social volcano liable to erupt at any time. The scourge of caste has roots so deep not even a half-millennium of Christianity in Cuncolim has eradicated its prejudices.

A Human Rights Watch report recently defined India's caste system as a form of "hidden apartheid." It is the legacy of a religion with a ruling elite that has never accepted the concept of human equality and continues to use brutal force in rural areas to maintain a religious status quo the Indian Constitution outlawed decades ago.

Although each caste has a plethora of subcastes, Hindu society is divided into four main categories. At the top are Brahmins, which include priests and intellectuals. These are followed by the Kshatriya, the warrior caste; the Vaishyas, farmers and merchants; and Shudras, artisans and upper-class servants who may serve meals and cook but refuse to clean or wash bathrooms.

At the bottom rung of the Hindu social ladder are 350 million Dalits, formerly known as Untouchables. The "lower castes" are just one rung above the Dalits and they make up a third of India's 1 billion people.

Dalits remain the workhorses of India--the sewage collectors and laborers, cruelly exploited by rural landlords, discriminated against and persecuted the moment any of them demand fairer treatment.

"In India, if Dalits are harassed or killed, no one reacts. But if one Christian is killed even Bill Clinton asks questions," said Gun Prakash, an elder of Pharal Village in Haryana state, just before 400 of his fellow villagers embraced Christ this month.

Unfortunately Christianity has not helped Dalits shed the oppressive yoke of their caste.

"Dalit Christians continue to be Dalits for the rest of the population," the daily Statesman said recently in an editorial.

As is the case elsewhere in India, the root of the caste problem in Cuncolim is land rather than religion. The Kshatriya, or warrior caste, insists the land was bequeathed to them by its colonial owner, Count Fiuza, when India took over the colony from Portugal in 1962. Many Dalits, working in the Persian Gulf states and as crews on cargo ships, accumulated wealth, bought land here and built stately homes. As their self-esteem increased, so did the resentment of the higher castes for these newly educated and assertive social inferiors.

Goa, with a Christian majority, is still relatively calm. In other parts of India, feudal landlords hire religious thugs or maintain their own militias known as the Ranvir Sena. Police are paid to suppress those Dalits who clamor for implementation of a land-reform law and equal rights that exist only on paper.

"Dalits are discriminated against, denied access to land, forced to work in degrading conditions and routinely abused at the hands of the police and of higher-caste groups that enjoy the state's protection," said a Human Rights Watch report issued this year and titled "Broken People."

The 291-page report reads like a horror story from a more barbaric time: Women, children and men are butchered in murderous raids conducted by higher-caste members. Police open village doors for rampaging mobs and watch as the massacres take place.

The report says that in most cases the raids followed demands by Dalit villagers for better pay, trespassing on high-caste land or alleged membership in Maoist or Marxist organizations. Sometimes the raids are conducted simply to intimidate.

Few cases are ever brought to court. Convictions are unheard of.

The Human Rights Watch report concludes: "Untouchables may not cross the line dividing their part of the village from that occupied by higher castes. They may not use the same wells, visit the same temples, drink from the same cups in tea stalls or lay claim to land that is legally theirs. Dalit children are made to sit in the back of classrooms.

"Dalit girls are forced to become prostitutes for upper-caste patrons and village priests. The frequent raping of Dalit women exposes the hypocrisy of the caste system as no one practices untouchability when it comes to sex."

Mendes is a young, Rome-trained priest, a native of this former Portuguese enclave. He likes to wear T-shirts and jeans rather than the formal cassock. He has bravely backed the bishop of Goa's desire to correct an injustice that for centuries left the running of church affairs to the Kshatriya caste.

In Cuncolim today the low-caste Catholics outnumber the Kshatriya 7-1.

The priest knew he was courting trouble, even in majority Christian Goa. As in the rest of India, Goa, too, has become a target for Hindu militants, encouraged by the ruling Hindu Nationalist Party and determined to preserve the country for those born to privileges and power over others.

Their persecution of Christians has not so much to do with religion as it does with fear of losing the cheap Dalit labor force.

In Cuncolim, the Hindu forefathers of the Kshatriya massacred five Jesuit priests five centuries ago. But today, Catholic Kshatriya venerate the murdered Jesuits at the Chapel of the Martyrs, a place, they insist, that must remain strictly off-limits to their Catholic Dalit brethren.

"A group of my Kshatriya Catholics came into my office and thumped the table. They were arrogant, abusive and told me unless I dropped the two new council members I would be cut into little pieces, very slowly, and each piece would be sent to my mother. It was scary," Mendes said. "I asked the police for protection."

Since police in India are notorious for ignoring caste complaints, the lower-caste Catholics formed their own bodyguard corps to protect the priest, who admits, with a rueful smile, that he, too, was born into the Kshatriya caste.

"When we heard they had come to threaten Father we surrounded the church. There were many of us and not so many of them. So they left," said Cipriano Pereira, a burly young man. He added, "I hope this feud doesn't end in war."

The caste conflict between the two Catholic communities goes back years.

A few years ago the low-caste Catholics challenged the exclusive right of the Kshatriyas to be buried in the church cemetery. On a sunny afternoon, just after the rice harvest, the first Dalit in almost 400 years was laid to rest in the cemetery of Our Lady of Health next to the white-washed Portuguese church built in 1604.

"That night," Mendes said, "a group of people exhumed the body, took him out of his coffin, wrapped him in a blanket and tried to carry him to the ward of the lower castes. Apparently he was too heavy. So they tossed him into the bushes, not far from the church. The police never found the culprits."

Once again the Dalits and the lower castes bit their lips and buried their dead elsewhere.

A decade ago the bishop of Goa decided a few Dalits should be included in the church choir. The decision ended in a brawl with upper-caste choir members who had no intention of standing next to Dalits or singing with them from the same hymn book. Intimidated, the Dalits withdrew their singers.

"We didn't want any trouble. We always back down. What can we do? They have the politicians and the police on their side. But today we believe in equality and we know we must stand up to them if anything is ever going to change here," said Bibiano Fernandes, a young, educated parishioner.